By now, I'm sure many of you have heard of Elizabeth "Eddie the Eagle" Swaney. The "games" the system by "taking advantage" of the obscurity of a sport in order to get into the Olympics. There are so many myths that her detractors are believing, particularly that she didn't work at all, and that she had special privileges and resources in order to show up for qualifications that others didn't have. I can dispel those pretty easily. She's really into sports and works pretty hard, and she also had to balance six jobs and live with her parents in order to afford the travel needed to get to the qualification events. She also didn't steel her spot from anyone else, because she needed to qualify in the Top 30 in world rankings, and others apparently didn't care enough to show up for qualifications, as is evidenced by the fact that the Top 30 only consists of 24 people.

But anyway, what I think is really ridiculous, more ridiculous than any misconception, is when people say that she lacks an ounce of moral fiber, that she's a despicable, selfish excuse for a human being. I even heard someone say that he would find it more entertaining to watch her getting shot.

Woah. Guys. Back off. Take a breather. In a few minutes, you might start seeing things clearly enough to realize how out of how silly you sound.

Right now, I want nothing more than to geek the crud out about this movie. It’s, wow. Ryan Coogler’s quickly become one of my favorite directors (courtesy of Creed and Fruitvale Station), and this movie is the icing on the cake.

There’s so much to love about it. The plot moves along at a clip pace, so much so that I found myself wanting more when it ended. Its supporting cast is as interesting as its leads, with everyone getting their due and characters like Okoye, Nakia, and Shuri stealing the show (and seriously, Okoye is the coolest). The conflict between T’challa and Killmonger is surprisingly nuanced, one where there is no real easy answer. Does a super advanced African nation have an obligation to other Africans, both those within the continent and part of the diaspora? Or should Wakanda remain isolationist, able to remain free of colonialist influence?

And these are all well and good facets of the movie (Okoye is so stinking cool), but there is, of course, the obvious one: Black Panther is the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature not only a black protagonist, but a predominately black cast as well. On top of that, these characters are from Wakanda, a fictional, utopian country in Africa. They’re cool; they get to do the superhero schtick.

That’s a big part of what makes the movie so interesting (on top of that it’s an excellently crafted film): its representation. This is a movie where a bunch of people who don’t usually get to be these sorts of heroes gets to be these sorts of heroes. Not only that, but Wakanda is a science-fiction style setting that doesn’t draw on Western influences, but rather celebrates Africa. Wakanda is Afrofuturism put up on the big screen, and believe you me, it’s refreshing. Characters wear traditional African outfits that, guess what, generate force fields and also look really cool.

That Black Panther is succeeding is excellent news for genre fiction. It proves that blockbuster science fiction and action don’t have to be about white people with decidedly western influences. If we can get this Afrofuturistic fantasy, maybe now an East Asian inspired science fiction story is viable, and one outside of anime at that. Or an anime that’s been adapted and now stars a white actor in the lead. Now there’s room for a Mesoamerican-inspired fantasy world where Spanish conquistadors don’t even enter into the equation.

For better or worse, media (that is, movies, television, books, games, etc) is predominately dominated by the West (and, in particular, the US). As such, most of the stories that Big Movies and blockbusters draw on are Americentric; we’re used to stories with characters who look like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers 'cuz those are the stories that get told. Black Panther is a shift, it’s a movie that says "Hey, you don’t have to look like Ryan Gosling to be the superhero." You can look like Chadwick Boseman.

So does this mean there’s gonna be a scifi epic coming out soon starting a Chinese dude in a Changshan kicking butt but not in an orientalized kung fu way? God, I hope so. It’s hard for me to find words to describe exactly what it was like watching Black Panther, getting to see this dope futuristic world that celebrated a culture that wasn’t, well, white. It was different, it was cool; in Wakanda it showed a country that’s as much an ideal as it is a fantasy.

And throughout it all, I couldn’t help but to ask when was my turn. When am I gonna get to see people who look like me in a big blockbuster, when am I gonna get to see the culture I’ve spent so much of my life a part of celebrated in a science fiction film featuring the people who actually live it? Sure, I’m only half-Asian, but that’s a half that doesn’t usually get seen.

In the meantime, Black Panther’s freaking awesome, go watch it, and celebrate what it does.

On a whim, I turned up today wondering what became of this old place. Is it better? Worse? The same? More bitter or less? BIONICLE-focused or not?

Also, I kind of regret not having been here to run the BaseBlog in The Year. We did it! The Cubbies finally won! Anyone can have a good century!

EDIT: Wow. Some cursory googling reveals some pretty insane stuff happened here. I'm glad I was gone when people started to go bonkers. It's sad that I've never been able to come back to the way I remember BZP. Or maybe it was never that way to begin with. I don't know. But it is disappointing to see how many people are gone or damaged. This was such a fun place. And I'm sorry for the part that I had in encouraging the chaos, even when I thought I might help to subdue it.

Some things I'd built but never shared were recently displayed at BrickFair Alabama. The KX-series droid is something I'd showed before when it was mostly completed, but I don't think I ever posted the finalized model. Ones I'd never shown before are Cat Noir and Birb.

Hoping at some point soon I can get back into a position where I can actually build stuff again. I miss it.

life update: still a slave for one of the last holdouts of a dying retail empire, on a double dosage of antidepressants, started getting swole, asked out possibly the coolest girl on planet earth and have a date with her next week

2018? Woah! No clue if anyone still follows my blog but I figured I'd drop by the old forums and reconnect. It's been 2 years since my last post. I'm now in college in Manhattan, and have had a nice part-time job for the last year. I'm still really big on retro video games and my collection is growing by the day. Right now I'm at about 400+ games. I also bought a Switch! Really excited to play more of that. A couple weeks ago I actually broke out some Bionicle parts and tried to finish a project, but didn't get to. Would honestly love to get back to building, but right now I have no time! What free time I can manage I spend on Youtube, with friends, playing video games, or playing guitar.

I figure I'm not 13 years old anymore and can actually say things like my full name and stuff without minding. I came here when I was 11, freaking 8 years ago. Wow! Anyway, I surmise you all know I don't frequent the forums anymore, so if you would care to follow my social media, I wouldn't mind to follow back! I honestly consider you guys as friends, so feel free to follow my instagram, @derekteut!

January marked my 3 year anniversary here at LEGO. Things were a little busier than expected, hence the lack of activity here, including the lack of a list of things I worked on. So here it goes:

60177 - Air Show Jet

Kicking off 2018 with a fast little jet. Jets are cool. The longest discussions were actually about the color scheme and stickers.

60174 - Mountain Police Headquarters

Building a police station is a bit of a rite of passage in City so I was very excited to get asked to do it only in my 2nd year. It's an important set in the lineup and it's pretty big and gets a lot of attention from marketing, so the team has a big interest in getting this one right. The general layout with the three levels of garage/prison/office was already decided when I started on the model. The big challenge lay in how to connect those three levels in a stable way without over-complicating the build. And yes, police is a theme we do frequently because - well, there tends to be a new generation of 5 year olds every couple of years. The fun part for this one was to mix it up a little bit - most obviously with the crooks helicopter. Some fun trivia: I chose the tail-fin of that helicopter because it was also featured in Onua Mistika some ten years ago. During development I came upon the issue of using a door-frame as a structural support in the back of the station - which left a pretty big hole from the garage leading directly to the cougar's cave. That's why there is a door now with a "keep out" sticker. The graphic designer also came up with an awesome little joke with the master crook having a framed picture of his pet piranha in the cell - the same fish that the police are holding in the small aquarium in their office.

60162 - Jungle Air Drop Helicopter

This technically isn't my set, since one of my colleagues was responsible for it, but in order to meet deadlines, we tag-teamed on this one. Obviously I only did the really cool stuff in this one: The tower with the crane and the jungle ruins. But that's what's great about working in a team: Everybody gets to suggest ideas, doesn't matter if you do graphics and have a good idea for a model or if you are a model designer with a good idea for a TV spot. Which also leads to everybody being able to have a little personal touch in the sets. Fun trivia about this one: We were never quite sure what the statue outside the cave was supposed to represent, so in the end it was dubbed "Bear-Hamster".

60138 - High Speed Chase

One of my favorites that I worked on so far. Building vehicles is fun, so to get to do three in one box was awesome! And it also marks the return of Chase McCain who's back on duty in LEGO City Undercover.

60136 Police Starter Set

This wasn't originally my assignment but a change in the assortment happened and I was asked to take over. The idea behind the starter sets is to pack a lot of characters and story into a small box so it can be a good first set for younger kids. Very happy that the little police car could be big enough to fit both the dog or one of the captured crooks. One of my colleagues came up with the brilliant little exploding function for the ATM.

60121 - Volcano exploration truck

My first boxed set. It was super-exciting to play around with the then-new new bar connector pieces and bull bar on the front of the truck. The biggest challenge was to figure out the correct order of the build of the rollcage.

11911 - LEGO City build your own adventure book

My first official model, though not in a box. My brief was a small firefighter's car and a scenario. This being the first model, I was surprised to find how much thought goes into something just this small. Probably had a dozen or so different variants lined up on my desk at one point of just the car. I keep some of them in a drawer still, as a reminder.

Click the banner to join BZPGOT Season 3! Despite the title, I've done my best to make sure that this season can stand on its own, so new players don't necessarily need to be worrying about being up to date will the prior two games or their associated lore.

Any returning plot points will be re-introduced as though they were new, although this season will mainly center around new conflicts and characters.

I'm trying to prepare for BricksCascade, and I have a couple of models I want to construct. But I inevitably have to go thru the pile from last year, which includes a bunch of partial MOCs and sets that I've been meaning to part out and sort, but never got around to it. And... that pile is intimidating. I wish I could get a full team of AFOLs to come sort it all in an afternoon like I've seen em do at PortLug... but I don't know that many people in the area, and my house is a big enough mess even without the Lego.

For now... I guess see how many partial sets you can identify in that pile? There are a few obvious ones, but a few are more subtle. And then of course there are a couple of MOC remains in there as well...

Pope Gregory XIII was a doofus as was Julius Caesar. Did they not foresee the importance of a logical calendar in a technological society? Here are some changes I would make if given supreme dictatorial power over the Free World.

1) New calendar starts the day after the winter solstice (i.e. the winter solstice is the last day of the year). The days start off short, get long, and once they're short again we start a new year. I could compromise by going with the summer solstice or one of the equinoxes, but the current system of "ehhh, I guess we'll start the new year like a week and a half after the solstice" is stupid and dumb and I hate it.

2) 12 months, 30 days each. Months 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 all get an extra day. That adds up to 365.

3) No leap years. The final day of the year will be 0.2422 days longer to help the rotation and the revolution counts catch up to each other.

4) Better month names. September, October, November, and December are months 9, 10, 11, and 12 just so that we could fit in two holidays named after emperors who have been dead for like 2000 years? That's insane. Nope, scrap the whole system. Pick some new naming scheme. Name them after stars, rocks, trees, historical figures, elements, or dinosaurs. The current system has no cohesion or logic.

5) Now that there's no shift in which day falls on which date, all holidays are static and better spaced out. Every month gets a holiday and they all happen either on a Monday or a Friday. None of this "oh, sometimes it lands on a Wednesday". That's not a lottery I'm interested in gambling at. Now I realize many religious and cultural celebrations may follow a lunar calendar or that certain groups may be attached to celebrations that are already tied to specific days. Well tough tamales! You should've thought of that before electing me supreme leader of the world.

I think that's a pretty good start, and it's pretty easy to fit a 5 step plan into my manifesto. I could go into detail on my plans for a 3 day weekend, second Christmas, or regulations about which holidays warrant fireworks and which ones do not, but I think I can save that for the supreme world leader election circuit.

So, hi. Wow. I will admit that I thought the place was razed to the ground years back, and became nothing more than a childhood memory.

I was still technically a youth when I was last here. I was a child when I first joined this place - a very vivid memory of me asking my mother for permission to join the Internet in a world of Bionicle that I learned from a Flash game of Takua.

To add to the feels of polishing off cobwebs, a lot of my old content was gone. I found a message in my Inbox asking for my second Epic, Changing Worlds. All those documents are gone, I'm afraid. I'd honestly be surprised if any data from 2005 made it to my laptop 13 years later.

Lots have changed for me, once I left BZPower and the server move. I got a degree. I got a job. I moved countries for said degree and job, and had to leave it and return to my homeland. Taxes became a thing. Earning a living. The skill of the pen left me as well, when the demand of a day-to-day job overtook languid breaks between essays and projects... and World of Warcraft and Starcraft and Diablo, et cetera.

And the 'death' of Bionicle. I honestly could not keep up when Mata Nui went from godhood to mortal life. He was the last figurine I got, and that was as a gift to an autistic boy who shared a similar passion. That was in 2010, I think? When the news from LEGO came out, I merely thought that all good things would come to an end.

Fast track to today. Just two days ago, I had to dig out old certificates for an interview. I dug out my old backups to hunt down one missing cert, and came across my old FictionWrites. One of them was for Bionicle. And no, it was not everything. I eventually started saving my Epic writings in 2003-4 by copying what I raved into a text field onto Notepad. That did not come through. My short stories were lost too. I only found two stories, both in-progress and will probably be buried. They are fond memories to me, and it would be wrong to go back in and whack at it aimlessly.

I honestly don't know if I will pop round much anymore, but it is great to see old friends and usernames still active here in BZP. Maybe I will? I'm not sure how the rules have changed - or if the rules have changed - but... Yeah. Good to see BZPower alive and well.

Well, todays the day, for another few minutes anyways. My BZPower account is now over a decade old!

It's crazy to think I've been on here this long. Granted, I've been surfing here much longer, since the year BZPower was advertised back on Lego.com during the Metru-nui days, it was right before the Hordika came out I believe. I remember finding Lady Kopaka's art, Roa Mc Toa's MOC's and The Editorialist's comics over the years, and getting absolutely hooked on the site because of them. I also remember the whole Vahki-power April fools fiasco, since it happened right when I had to get stitches from a deep cut I got going sledding down a jump made of ice. What fun!

I also remember managing to make an account on here briefly, only for my first and only post to be something along the lines of 'tahu sucks', which quickly followed by me either forgetting the password or getting temp banned, and unable to create a new account until after my parents switched internet providers several years later; I was not a very smart child

And while all of that was well and good, it was this account, that I made back in January 11th 2008, that this post is of course all about. Thanks to it I've met several lifelong friends and of course my lovely fiancé (Inferna Firesword on here!), all of which I wouldn't trade the world for. And thanks again to everyone who congratulated us on the engagement, by the way!

It's been a long, fun and bumpy ride. from the sprite comics I did with Fusion X Dylan, the co-authoring I did for Toa Zero's, the hand drawn comics I made and the ones i drew with Taka Nuvia, the stories and prank wars that went on with my fellow Toa Seneca, the RPG's I took part of with so many others, and finally the semi-recent things ive done with Zahaki, Zippy, Itaki and Onaku, I'll never forget all the hilarious, awesome and dumb things I did with all of you, not to mention all my countless other friends and the cool folks I met here all along the way, kind enough to support and critique my work I've shown, helping make me a much better artist, and person.

In any case, i'm quickly running out of time to post this on the right day, so ill leave this post off on this note for here. Rest assured though, I plan to make a more proper tribute to this site, and all the awesome people I've met here along the way

A long while. Not exactly sure of the time frame to be honest, but it may be far too long.

Well, where was I? Air Force Basic Training, 323rd Training Squadron, Lackland AFB, Texas. Had a fantastic time. Grew a lot. Lost 15lbs, almost made honor grad, and met some great people(and some awful people.).

Now, I'm at Tech School for Weather. Meteorology. Cloud science. Keesler AFB, Mississippi. I have about 6 1/2 months ahead of me and I'm looking forward to getting past it.

I'm back. Look forward to my writing on the weekends primarily, as the weekdays are far too busy for that. Anybody miss me?

Wouldn't be shocked if nobody remembered me, wasn't around that long in the first place.

HEY GUYS LET'S MAKE 2018 AMAZING. Because 2017 was one of the most exhausting years I've had to contend with.

Between current events, moving six hours away to a new town, a medical withdrawal from college (after attempting to return from a six year hiatus), my dad getting a serious cancer, financial problems (but at least I have generous family and friends to keep me homeless), health still NOT improving, friend struggles, and...I'll just cut the list early there. Suffice to say you get the idea.

It wasn't all bad and I need to remember the good, but yeah, let's not do a repeat of that again. I hope your 2017 was better at least--and if you're struggling like me, let's stick together and hope 2018 is kinder. We can do this!

I haven't canceled CATALYST, but with my health and life situations I've fallen dismally behind. I hope to be back in the groove soon. Either to continue it or have a new plan.